Guy Fieri will be taking it easy on Thanksgiving and beyond, after suffering an on-set accident that’s left him in a wheelchair and on crutches.
“[I] slipped down a set of steps and one foot went forward and the other foot got caught on the threshold,” the Food Network star, who hosts shows such as Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy’s Grocery Games, told Fox News Digital on Monday. “So, you know, it extended me out. I looked like I was probably doing the splits, but when my right leg compressed into itself, the giveaway point, and the doctor said he’s never seen — you know, in 20 years — he hasn’t seen a tear in the biggest, thickest part of your quad in half. Yeah, it sucked.”
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Fieri, 57, said he was quickly taken into surgery for the gruesome injury.
“You normally tear that muscle at your tendon or the tendon tears off the bone,” he said, “but this was right in the center of the whole quad muscle and it exploded.”
The incident happened at an inconvenient time, when they were “right in the middle of filming” a new show.
Food Network
“We’ve got everybody in town and all the chefs there and 125 people on set — and everybody’s ready to go — and I’m in surgery,” Fieri told the outlet. “So, we figured out how to pivot through it and to have some creative filming techniques. But it’s been a run, and now I’m up here at the ranch, where it’s always about hiking and outdoors and, you know, beautiful.”
The chef said he has to stay off his feet for eight weeks, then wear a cast and undergo rehab.
His sons and a nephew planned to do the Thanksgiving cooking, although Fieri said he will be “quarterbacking from the wheelchair” and “telling them what to do.” (He and his wife, Lori, are the parents of Ryder, 19, and 29-year-old Hunter.)
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Fieri’s rep for comment.
Audiences met Fieri when he won the show Next Food Network Star in 2006. He began hosting Guy’s Big Bite, before his empire expanded to other series, books, restaurants, and products, including his line of Flavortown-branded cookware.
